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This year, by the barest of margins, pastrami trumped lobster and Macarthur Park trumped Melrose.

For the eighth year, Los Angeles Chowhounders have expressed their opinions about what constitutes “the ultimate Los Angeles restaurant”, following the dictum established by the poll’s founder, Mr. Grub: "The concept is simple: everyone is asked to list, in rank order, your five top restaurants in Los Angeles County that you would recommend to houndly out-of-town visitors or to Chowfriends for a special occasion. Since we worship at the altar of deliciousness, your ranking should be based 75% on food and 25% on everything else."

For the last three years, the world-class seafood emporium Providence has owned the top spot in the Los Angeles Ultimate Chowhound. Last year, for the first time I ran two polls, one for restaurants in the category of over $25 per person for food, and the other in the category of $25 or less for food. Langer’s, home to what even the most chauvinist New York deli partisans will concede is the best pastrami sandwich in the U.S., received no votes in the 2007 poll. Last year, it rocketed to second place. This year, Langer’s has beat Providence by two points.

Partisans of Michael Cimarusti and his shrine to piscine glory have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of; the point difference is so tiny as to constitute a virtual tie. But consider that a restaurant in a questionable part of town that closes at 4 pm and on Sundays can be considered by Chowhounders in the same company as a Michelin-two-star emporium on Melrose. The result points to the depth and breadth of Chowhounders’ tastes, and demonstrates why Chowhounders are eager to participate in this site and this poll.

Chowhounders increased their participation by 26% over last year (due probably in part to a longer voting period as well as a larger base):

Voters were asked to vote for up to ten restaurants, five in each of two categories. Their first-place choices got points equal to the number of restaurants they voted for; second-place got one vote less, and so forth. So, those who voted for five restaurants gave five points for their first choice, four for their second, three for their third, two for their fourth and one for their fifth choice.

Total restaurants cited: 343, including the 12 that were cited in both polls

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THE TOP 25 OVERALL (both polls):

For the rankings below, the number immediately after the colon is the total points, the first number in square brackets is the total voters, and the number after the slash is the total voters, if any, who gave it five points. The numbers in curly brackets are the 2008 overall rankings, if any. So for example, Langer's received 120 points from 32 voters, of whom 16 gave it five points.

Of the top 25 restaurants, thirteen were cited in the Over $25 poll, seven in the $25 and Under poll, and five in both polls. (There was some controversy as to the over-vs-under ranking of places such as Park’s BBQ, that just barely made it into the over-$25 after being a $25-and-under last year. A majority of the places that get votes in both polls are sushi bars, izakayas and dim sum palaces, where checks can vary widely by the a-la-carte nature of the menu and the customer’s hunger.)

Twelve restaurants are new to the Top 25 from last year. The Bazaar by José Andrés (to cite its full name) had just opened last year, and this year rocketed from #81 place to #3. Gjelina wins for the biggest improvement (from #252 to #17). Other improvements in overall rankings include Animal (up from #41 to #8) and Park’s BBQ (from #72 to #19).

The top-ranked newly-opened restaurant is Church and State; Umami Burger, Mariscos Chente, Westside Tavern and Torihei are the other newbies in the Top 25. The most precipitate declines from the 2008 overalls are Craft which went from #7 last year to only one vote this year, and last year’s #19 Comme Ça which received no votes. Clementine went from #17 to #91 and Sona went from #13 to #40. I can’t stress too strongly that these declines can be attributed at least as much to sampling variance than to any decline in restaurant quality.

I could be wrong about this, but I saw no RIP votes for restaurants that closed since the last poll (excepting Hatfield’s which will re-open very soon.) I disallowed a vote for Doughboys since it had closed before the 2008 poll.

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I will separately post the complete over-$25 and $25-and-under results and link them as a comment to this post.

Orange County restaurant fans, please don’t forget to participate in OCAnn’s 2009 Ultimate OC Restaurants Poll, which will be soliciting your votes until the end of the year: